What would you do with this image

The LCD seldom reveals everything and while the flower might remain, the OP might have gotten on down the road. Eno, I hope you aren't becoming un-receptive of your environment. Often in a photograph like this, the photographer relies on intuition and it isn't until finishing the image that reason enters.

The histogram? Only takes a second and does nothing to destroy reliance on intuition.

Quality of light, per se, is a misnomer. What creates quality is what the photographer does with the light.

I disagree in part. In many circumstances you have the character, direction and color of light that you have, and there's very little the photographer can do except to notice it, frame the best photo he can for the subject bathed in that light and release the shutter. If you're talking about the portion of that sentence after "except" we agree. If you're implying that the photographer can in every instance mold the light to his vision, there are cases where that can be true and there are others (standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking some natural wonder) where choices are limited to none. It's very hard to place a reflector or add some fill flash for a rock face 5 miles away. OTOH, a ND grad filter (essentially a selective light subtractor) can balance a bright sky over that rock face so that the exposure can handle and adequately capture a smaller dynamic range.

With some work, the OP will be able to create a desirable light quality and because it is slightly overexposed, it is easy to bring out the lovely shadows in the swirl of the petals.

In this case, yes, we agree. As I noted, a flash (off-camera would create better quality by improving the direction of light) would help balance the exposure. A reflector might improve things as well, and do so more naturally (though less brightly) by re-directing available, matching ambient light.

I am glad you mentioned quality of light and how important it is to an image. It gives me hope you haven't completely gone over to the dark and technical side of photography.

Yes, I realized some time ago in my own photos that my exposures were perfect and my photos still looked terrible. Light was too harsh (or dull), came from the wrong direction to properly draw the subject, or had the wrong color. In many ways I'm still grappling with this, as it is far easier to "nail" exposure than to notice, much less harness "good light."

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